


Hold Fast

by Moonsault, orphan_account



Series: The Darkling Plain [4]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: M/M, Rescue Missions, Supernatural Elements, Tam Lin - Freeform, Urban Fantasy, faerie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 01:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6684259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsault/pseuds/Moonsault, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"See," said Enzo Amore, "your buddy Dean is a prince of the Faerie, sent here by his mother the Queen to train in combat for a dozen years, but his time is up and now he’s being called home and he’s gonna need you to keep it from happening.”  He beamed at Cass.  “See?  Told you I could explain it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Fast

Roman Reigns, heavyweight champion of the world, put on a burst of speed to catch up with Dean Ambrose in the hall. “Hey,” he said. 

Dean grunted, not looking at him.

“Can you believe what just happened out there tonight?” Roman realized Dean was pulling away from him; he had to pick up his pace to stay at his side. “I mean, Jericho, Owens, Styles, that new guy, the redhead--”

“Sami,” said Dean. “Sami Zayn.”

“Right. Anyway, all of them demanding a shot at my title? Crazy, huh?”

“I guess.” Dean hunched his shoulders and kept walking.

“I mean--” Roman broke off, suddenly unsure of what he _did_ mean. Dean had kind of gone AWOL after his match with Brock. And--Roman had been so focused on his match against Triple H that he hadn’t really had time to check in with Dean lately. When was the last time they’d really talked, more than in passing? He cast his mind back and stopped short when he realized he hadn’t seen much at all of Dean since that triple threat match.

Dean had kept walking and was now at the locker room door. Roman hurried to catch up--why was he always falling behind in this conversation? Something that felt kind of like guilt was nibbling at the back of his mind: “Hey,” he said again. “I’m sorry I haven’t been much support lately, with you dealing with Brock and all.”

“Brock?” Dean squinted at him as if Roman had said something completely random. “Oh yeah, him.”

“‘Oh yeah, him,’” Roman echoed, not sure whether to laugh or not. “You know, the guy who almost suplexed you into oblivion?”

For some reason, a grim smile touched Dean’s mouth at that. “Oblivion ain’t the problem,” he muttered.

“Well, what _is?”_ Roman snapped. “You’ve been avoiding me--”

“Oh, hey,” said Dean, pushing open the locker room door and walking in. “He noticed. Give the champ a prize.”

That stung. “It’s that triple threat, isn’t it,” he said, taking a stab. “You hit me with a chair, and--”

Dean winced.

“--and you feel bad about it,” Roman finished limply, suddenly feeling like a jerk for bringing it up. _Couldn’t just let sleeping dogs lie, could you, Roman? Now he’s going to think you really are hot about it._

“Maybe I do feel bad about it, and maybe I don’t,” said Dean. “But that’s not the--”

He broke off as he opened his locker. Roman saw his mouth compress into a tight line and his nostrils flare as though he were trying not to gasp. Then he reached into his locker and pulled out--

“Flowers,” Roman said blankly. “Why are there flowers in your locker?”

It was a branch, actually. A flowering branch, covered with creamy pale yellow blooms that looked a little like apple blossoms. Dean held it between two fingers like he was holding a serpent, his eyes narrowed. “Crap,” he muttered. “I guess it was too much to hope for.”

“What the hell is going on?” Roman said.

Dean looked at him, and for a moment Roman saw desperation and worry in his eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something--but then clamped it shut again, shaking his head. “It’s nothing,” he said, and lobbed the branch toward the trash can in the corner. “I gotta get going,” he said. “Got places to be.”

Roman felt a strange, irrational panic seize him, as if Dean were slipping away from him somehow. “Where?” he blurted out. _Don’t let him go._

Dean shrugged on his jacket. “Just places,” he said. “No place you’d like to go, champ.” He started for the door, then paused with his hand on the handle. He turned around and looked back at Roman, and his face was warm and wry, his friend’s face again, all distance gone. Roman felt his heart turn over. “Hey,” Dean said. “I don’t think I ever said congratulations. I’m sorry, man. You deserve every bit of it.” He came back to stand in front of Roman and tapped him lightly on the chest, over the heart. “You’ve got the heart of a champion. I’m proud of you.”

Then he threw open the door so hard it banged against the wall and was gone.

The branch had fallen short of the trash; Roman picked it up, twirling it slowly in his hands, looking at the bruised and battered flowers as he left the locker room too. He had screwed that up somehow, he knew it. There was something he didn’t say, something he didn’t do. He was failing Dean. Somehow, he knew it in his bones. 

A few petals came loose and floated to the ground, tracing pale arcs in the air.

“What the hell is that?” Becky Lynch’s voice was agitated as she grabbed the branch from his hand. “Where did you get this?”

“It was in Dean’s locker,” Roman said without thinking, startled by her vehemence.

“Hawthorn,” she said, staring at it. “Damn it.”

“Just what the hell is--”

“Roman,” Becky said, “Dean is in terrible danger, and we’re going to need your help.”

“Danger?” Roman knew he looked lost. Hell, he was pretty sure he looked panicked. “Who’s we?”

* * *

“It’s a warning,” Becky said, holding the branch up for the other people in the room to see. “And a message.”

“Shit,” said Enzo Amore. “That’s bad news.”

“I’m sure he was hoping she’d just forget,” said Colin Cassady, leaning forward to pluck the branch from Becky’s hands.

“The fair folk never forget their own,” Sami Zayn said, looking grim.

“Now, hold up just a goddamned minute,” said Roman, and the four other wrestlers looked at him. “What the _hell_ are you talking about?”

“Oh geez,” said Cass, “I ain’t sure we got time to get him up to speed.”

“No problem, no problem,” said Enzo, standing up. “I can do this.” He took a deep breath. “Roman, the four of us are the main roster’s supernatural-wrangling squad, it used to be Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury, but they handed the responsibility on to us, so we handle the magic shit that crops up here, like Baron Corbin being a werewolf--” He ignored Roman’s incredulous _”What?”_ “--Or Kane opening gateways to hell, or the occasional unicorn stampede. See, your buddy Dean is a prince of the Faerie, sent here by his mother the Queen to train in combat for a dozen years, but his time is up and now he’s being called home and he’s gonna need you to keep it from happening.” He beamed at Cass. “See? Told you I could explain it.”

Sami looked at Roman’s face. “I think we might need to go over it again, more slowly.”

* * *

“A prince.”

“Yep.”

“A faerie prince.”

“Well, half-faerie.” Cass had taken over for Enzo, who was sulking a little bit. “His mother had an affair with a mortal man, but he proved faithless and abandoned her to return to the mortal world. Then, like Enzo said--”

“--like Enzo _eloquently_ said,” Amore cut in, but Cass ignored him.

“Like he said, Dean showed a gift for combat, so he was sent here to learn skills to be a faerie warrior for a dozen years. But that time is up soon.”

“That’s crazy,” said Roman. But somehow, impossibly, it felt _right._ The strange, elusive quicksilver wildness that was Dean Ambrose. The way his face seemed able to shift from scruffy ugliness to an uncanny, almost unearthly beauty without any transition whatsoever. And most importantly, the fear and desperation in his eyes when he had seen those hawthorn blossoms. Somehow Roman found himself not doubting them at all. “But… if what you’re saying is true… when is that time up?”

“Beltaine,” Becky said.

“What’s that? When’s that?”

“It’s one of the nights of the year when the veil between our world and the world of Faerie is thinnest,” Becky said. “It’s May first.”

She looked at him, and there was fear in her eyes.

“Payback is being held on Beltaine.”

“Payback,” Roman heard himself mutter. “Well, I ain’t letting this payback happen, that’s for sure.” 

He looked at them, nodding. 

“What do I have to do?”

* * *

“Okay,” said Becky Lynch. “Enzo will open a gate to the faerie realm for you.”

“Enzo?” Roman knew he sounded incredulous.

Enzo shrugged. “I’ve got a bit of training in word-wizardry, plus apparently a lotta natural ability. Washed out of wizarding school ‘cause I wanted to wrestle, but I picked up a few tricks here and there.”

“Wizarding school. Right,” said Roman.

“I don’t know exactly what you’ll find there,” Becky went on. “The realm of the Fae is always shifting and changing. But eventually you’ll see a procession of some sort. A parade, probably with horses. There’ll be brown horses and black horses, but don’t mess with them. Eventually there’ll be a rider on a white horse. That’s Dean.”

“The white horse,” Roman repeated.

“When you see the rider on the white horse, you run to him and pull him off it. Then the only thing you have to do is hold on to him.”

“That’s all?”

Becky’s smile was humorless. “It won’t be that easy. The Faerie Queen will transform him into--I don’t know what. Animals. Monsters. He’ll fight you. But you have to hold fast.”

“See, here’s the thing,” said Cass. “Dean’s mom--”

“The Faerie Queen,” Roman added. “Dean’s mom, the Faerie Queen.” That didn’t get any easier to process.

“Right,” said Cass. “Dean’s mom ain’t a bad person, exactly. But she got wicked burned when her lover ditched her. She lost faith in humans. She thinks we can’t be trusted for shit, that we’re all faithless and untrustworthy. We won’t hold on. We won’t be true. You gotta prove her wrong, or Dean’s gone forever.”

“It’s going to hurt,” Becky said in a low voice. “She’ll choose forms designed to maul and break you. But if you can get through it, the wounds will probably disappear.”

“Probably?” said Roman.

Becky grimaced. “We hope so.”

Roman took a long breath. “I just gotta hold on to him?”

Becky nodded.

“So it’s basically a wrestling match?”

Becky’s eyes widened. “I...guess it is.”

“A wrestling match for Dean’s soul,” Roman said. “I can do this.”

Sami, who had been silent until then, spoke up suddenly: “One more thing. You’re missing Payback if you go. You’re missing your title defense. You might get stripped of the title for no-showing this match, you know.” 

Roman glared at Sami. “No way I’m putting that belt above Dean’s life. They can take it away and just hand it over to Styles if they want.”

Sami met his eyes for a long, grim beat. Then he smiled, and in that light Roman felt as if he’d received a benediction. “Good answer,” he said. He slapped Roman on the shoulder. “Let’s get you into the realm of the fae so you can save Dean Ambrose from having to become an unseelie warrior.”

“How you doin’?” said Enzo Amore. He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a microphone, twirling it between his fingers. “Time to work some magic.”

He waved the microphone--and Roman felt his eyes widen as lines of light were traced in the air in its wake, purple and silver and deep azure. Of course Enzo Amore’s magic wand was a microphone, he realized. That made sense. It might be the only thing tonight that had.

Enzo was talking, a quick patter of words that fell like stone into the web of lines, shifting them and shaping them. With a final flourish of his microphone, the whole thing seemed to snap into place--a doorway in the air, gleaming with eerie light.

“It’s all you, Reigns,” said Enzo with a bow.

For just a second, Roman considered walking away, considered telling them that any of them were more qualified than he was to go through that doorway and deal with whatever was on the other side. Why him? Why was he the one that had the ability to save Dean Ambrose’s soul? He was just a guy from Pensacola, really. Putting aside all that “I’m the man” talk, he was...just a man, after all.

“You have to hold fast,” Becky whispered, looking at him, her eyes shadowed by the strange light of the doorway, and suddenly Roman remembered Dean’s face, laughing and punch-drunk near the end of a long trip, his eyes alight with some joke only he understood. He remembered Dean hunched over a stray puppy on the street, patting its head, promising they’d help it find its home. He remembered Dean, jittery and nervous, dancing from foot to foot with eagerness to get to the ring, the way his face transformed when he smiled at the sound of the audience cheering them. For all he talked about life being shit and filled with cruelty, Dean loved this world _so fucking much._ Roman felt rage kindle beneath his breastbone at the idea that anyone could take Dean from it. _Not on my watch._

He nodded once, wordless, and stepped through the portal.

* * *

He wasn’t sure what he had expected. He supposed a forest, like in a fairy tale. Maybe a castle.

Instead, he found himself standing on the broken pavement of a city street. On either side loomed brick tenements, crumbling in the moonlight, their shattered windows filled with jagged glass like fangs. The sidewalks were dotted with trash cans filled with sullen flame, casting flickering shadows up and down the utterly empty, silent street.

He turned back to tell Enzo he had sent him to the wrong place, but the portal was gone. 

_Okay. Move forward, then._ The light from the fires sent strange shadows dancing along his feet as he stepped forward. There was rustling from the ruined buildings around him, and for a second he thought he heard, so high it was almost beyond the range of his hearing, a trill of silvery laughter. A streetlight blinked on and off as if sending desperate messages in code. As Roman drew closer he realized it was wrapped in green vines; at his approach the vines suddenly burst into a myriad of tiny golden flowers as if in time-lapse photography. The flowers glowed oddly, and as they did the streetlight went out entirely with a sudden sighing _pop._

Roman stumbled backwards and gave the streetlight a wide berth, picking his way across the shattered pavement. The ruins looked somehow _purposeful._ Windows like dead eyes, watching him. Judging him. 

A slow breeze sent a lethargic spiral of dead leaves and pieces of paper winding down the street, but besides that nothing was moving. Roman thought he heard footsteps behind him and whirled, but there was nothing there. 

And then he heard the distinctive sound of slow hoofbeats, drawing closer. There was a shimmer as of crystalline bells.

Roman wanted to withdraw into the shadows, but instead he found himself rooted to the spot with something like awe and terror as a procession of horses rounded the corner and started to make their way down the street past him. Each horse had a rider. Some were knights dressed in armor of bronze and silver and cold, visors down over their faces. Others were dressed in silks and velvets that glimmered in strange ways in the mingled fire- and moonlight, veils covering their eyes. Power flickered around them like cold flame, and the way they held themselves was not entirely human. 

None of the host spared a glance for Roman, standing by the side of the road. He watched as they rode by, two by two, brown horses and black horses all.

And then his breath caught.

He would have known it was Dean even it weren’t the only white horse in the procession. He was dressed all in shining silver armor, filigreed in strange swooping designs, but Roman knew the way Dean sat, slouched but alert. He knew the way Dean held his head, tilted halfway between laughter and heartbreak.

He knew Dean, knew him with all his heart.

And as he knew him, he realized he could move again, and he leaped forward to grab the knight on the white horse by the hand and pull him down into his arms.

The world went utterly quiet. All the horses stopped dead on the spot, and a hundred heads turned in perfect unison to stare at him as he sat on the ground with Dean unmoving, limp in his arms.

“He’s mine,” Roman snarled at them. “You can’t have him.”

There was a peal of bright, hard laughter, and suddenly Roman’s arms were around a mad dog, froth dripping from its muzzle, jaws snapping at Roman’s neck. _Hold fast,_ he heard Becky’s voice whisper, and he tucked his head down to protect his neck and held on to the dog--to Dean--with all his strength. Sharp hind claws kicked at his belly, tearing, and he heard himself make a hoarse sound. But he didn’t let go.

The coarse fur in his arms shifted and changed, and Roman felt scales beneath his fingers, felt a lithe body suddenly twine around his arm as an emerald snake struck at him, fastening fangs in his cheek just below his eye. He felt venom burning, saw his vision misting as the poison trickled into his eye. “No,” he said, though he wanted to scream. “Dean would never. This isn’t real. I’m not letting go.”

More laughter. Was that a note of uncertainty beneath it? And then his arms were around a massive gorilla that hugged him back, lifted him up to DDT him into the pavement. Roman felt bones shatter, but he kept his arms around Dean--this was Dean, this was _Dean_ \--clinging to him with all his strength. Another DDT. A bulldog. The worst match of his life, worse than anything with Brock Lesnar, because he couldn’t even fight back, he could only hold on. He could only hold fast. 

The gorilla stopped, and Roman could feel its sides heaving for breath. He pressed his face into its chest, tasting blood, and turned his head to spit onto the street. “Is that...all you got?” he managed.

This time the silvery voice was a snarl of rage and panic, and Roman found himself holding--

He heard himself gasp and for a second, for just a second, he almost let go. His arms were wrapped around nothing living, nothing but a seething mass of barbed wire and razor blades and broken glass that writhed and slashed at him. He felt sharp edges slicing across his skin, heard his blood spattering on the pavement from a thousand gashes. The barbs sought his eyes, the razors scored his face, and he screamed aloud with pain and fear and pure, primal rage:

“This is _Dean!_ You cannot have him! I will not let him go!” Roman hugged the wild maelstrom closer, letting it shred at him. “This is all Dean, my friend, my brother, my heart, my love--” The world went very silent, but Roman went on through the pain, through his fear, because if he was going to die here than _by God_ he at least wanted Dean to know. “ _My love!_ ” he screamed like a challenge into the silence, “and I embrace all of him, and I will not ever let him go. Kill me, but I will die with my arms around him!” 

The silence seemed to gather itself, and Roman braced himself as if for a blow.

And then his arms were around something softer and more yielding than metal and glass, and he looked down to see Dean, his Dean, naked and staring at him. Dean’s body was daubed and smeared with blood, and Roman felt panic until he realized it was all his, it wasn’t Dean’s, after all.

“Ro,” said Dean, and there was awe and something like tears in his voice. His hands touched Roman’s body, and in the wake of his touch the pain was gone. He drew Roman’s face close and kissed his wounds, and the fierce venomous burning vanished, the lines of anguish faded. “I’m sorry,” whispered Dean.

“‘Sokay. It wasn’t you,” said Roman.

“It was,” said Dean. “It was, in a way.” He took Roman’s face in his hands. “But this is too,” he said, and kissed him.

Roman clung to him, dizzy with relief and joy and the dawning realization that something had changed forever (and yet it hadn’t, it had always been this way, really). He would have been happy to stay in Dean’s embrace forever, pressing kisses against that glib and lovely mouth, except that there was a chiming sound, and a rustle of silks, and Dean muttered something in a language that wasn’t English--wasn’t human--and broke the kiss to struggle to his feet. 

Roman rose with him, keeping his arms around him--he wasn’t taking any chances, and also he wasn’t certain he could stand on his own right now--to find that all of the faerie host on their knees in obeisance, with one lone figure standing.

She was dressed all in red, with a golden veil covering her face and a diadem on her brow. As Roman watched, she lifted unearthly long hands and unfastened the veil, pulling it aside to reveal a face of ageless, inhuman beauty framed by silver hair.

Her eyes, however, were a familiar blue, and there were tears in them.

“Mom,” said Dean. His voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry, Mom. But I can’t stay with you. You know I can’t. It ain’t my place. My place is…” He shrugged his shoulders, pulling Roman closer. “It’s here.”

“Oh, my son,” said the Faerie Queen.

“I promise,” said Dean, “I promise that if Faerie needs protecting, I’ll come running. Hell, I’ll bring some of the best fighters the mortal world has to offer with me, you’ll see.”

“I don’t care about that,” said the queen.

“Come on, Mom, don’t cry,” Dean said helplessly as the first silver trails slipped down his mother’s face. “I’ll come visit. I promise.”

“I’ll make sure he does, ma’am,” said Roman without thinking, seeing for a moment only a mother in pain.

The queen’s eyes flicked to Roman, and Roman felt Dean suck in a breath of trepidation. But then she smiled, though it was a smile touched with sadness. “Hold fast,” the queen whispered.

“Always,” said Roman, putting all the weight and certainty he could into it.

A gust of wind blew dead leaves across Roman’s vision, and when it cleared again the street was empty. Only he and Dean remained.

They stood for a second, their arms around each other. Then Dean cleared his throat. “So,” he said, studiously casual, “that was my mom. I think she likes you.”

Roman couldn’t help it, he burst into laughter, putting his head on Dean’s bare shoulder. Dean tangled his hands in his hair and kissed him again, breathless and hungry, and Roman just leaned into him and kissed him back.

“Hey, wait just a second,” Dean suddenly said, breaking the kiss. “Ain’t tonight Payback? Aren’t you supposed to be defending the title?”

“Sure, but I couldn’t let them--”

“--You dope!” Dean said. “We gotta get you back in time or you’ll lose the title!” He grabbed Roman’s hand. “There should be a portal just around the corner that’ll drop us off in the middle of the ring. That’s how the Wyatts always do it, Abigail’s got a treaty with my mom. Let’s go!”

“But I can hardly stand!” Roman protested as Dean hauled him around the corner and he saw the glowing violet lines of another doorway.

“No time to worry about it!” Dean yelled. “We’ll wing it!”

“And--Dean, wait! Dean, you’re buck naked!”

Dean stopped and glanced down at himself, looking surprised. Then he shrugged. “No time to worry about it!” he announced. “We’ll wing it!”

He broke into a run, dragging Roman through the portal behind him.


End file.
